Duryea, Pa., hugs the Lackawanna River, where churches, schools and homes look out over placid water until heavy rains send the river surging. A tall earthen levee installed in the 1970s has long protected the borough, but development and a shifting climate have increased storm intensity and runoff. Laura Holbrook, director of the Luzerne County flood protection authority, says the levee needs to be raised roughly three feet to restore adequate protection.
The need is urgent. Luzerne County has suffered major floods in 2011 and 2014, and more recent storms have caused millions in damage. According to the National Climate Assessment, the heaviest storms in the Northeast now drop about 60% more rain than in the mid-20th century. Local officials say that trend — and the prospect of worse events — keeps them up at night.
Duryea and similar small towns lack the tax base to finance big infrastructure fixes on their own. The proposed levee upgrade would cost about three times Duryea’s annual municipal budget, and officials estimate the project would qualify for roughly $11 million in federal mitigation grants. The borough invested hundreds of thousands of dollars producing engineering designs to compete for that money — but then the federal funding stalled.
During the previous administration, FEMA stopped processing new applications and halted billions intended for disaster preparedness and mitigation, including the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which had become the largest federal grant source aimed at reducing disaster risk before storms strike. BRIC was created after the 2018 disaster reform bill and expanded support for projects ranging from flood defenses to wildfire mitigation. Federal officials and researchers have long argued that pre-disaster investments save lives and reduce long-term costs, and BRIC quickly drew more applications than it could fund.
The suspension of BRIC prompted widespread concern and action. State and local officials — including leaders in conservative, Trump-leaning areas such as parts of Luzerne County — pushed back, lawmakers introduced measures to restore the program, and 20 states filed suit. A federal judge ordered BRIC reinstated last year, and FEMA has agreed to restart grant activity, but the program’s interruption has created a backlog and deep uncertainty. FEMA has warned that applicants from multiple years may now be competing for a single year’s funding and said it plans to prioritize “major infrastructure projects.” It has not provided a clear timeline for releasing money or confirmed which project types tied to climate risk will be eligible under new guidance.
Experts say the delay has left many communities exposed. Andrew Rumbach of the Urban Institute warned the pause turned “communities into sitting ducks,” vulnerable to floods, wildfires and other hazards made more frequent and severe by climate change.
Small towns rely heavily on federal grants because local budgets and tax bases are too small to cover large mitigation investments. “We don’t have the money to do it, and we don’t have the tax base to do it,” says Keith Moss, Duryea’s emergency management director. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who represents parts of Luzerne County, put it bluntly: municipalities simply don’t have $10 million sitting around for such projects.
Compounding the funding interruption, FEMA has shed thousands of employees in recent months, which could slow application reviews that already took a year or more. Agency communications have also been mixed: while complying with the court order to restart BRIC, FEMA sent internal messages criticizing the program as overly bureaucratic and focused on climate initiatives, and incoming DHS leadership has floated ideas about restructuring the agency. That rhetoric has heightened anxiety in small communities about which projects and which places will get priority.
The latest funding round includes provisions intended to help small, impoverished communities by offering a higher federal cost share for successful applicants. But several changes adopted to help rural applicants compete — such as technical-assistance boosts and other adjustments under the prior administration — have been reversed, making it harder for places without grant-writing teams to succeed. Many rural counties and towns lack dedicated staff; James Brozena, a former Luzerne County flood official now assisting local governments, notes that in some places a single part‑time worker or volunteer handles much of the work.
The administration’s skepticism about projects framed explicitly around climate change also clouds the future of common mitigation measures — sea walls, wildfire home-hardening, and other efforts closely tied to rising seas and intensifying fire seasons. Even with BRIC’s reinstatement, small towns confront administrative delays, shifting priorities and reduced staffing while storms grow more intense and infrastructure needs grow.
For Duryea and communities like it, the result is continued vulnerability. Local leaders have completed designs and plans ready to deploy, but without timely federal dollars those projects stall. As residents attend council meetings asking for action, officials worry many towns will remain exposed until funding and clearer federal guidance arrive.